from recylart.org

Reference work in an elementary school library looks different than in an academic library, but I see useful strategies to apply to school library reference in Elmborg's article, "Teaching at the Desk: Toward a Reference Pedagogy".  He asserts that reference librarians should seek to meet students at their individual levels of readiness and styles of learning.  Within the elementary school classroom, I strive to do the same, but the challenges are great when one has 20 or more different personalities with their unique styles and needs (or zone of proximal development).  On the other hand, the reference scenario is set up for meeting one person's unique needs, seeing the request through to completion with that patron or student.  One drawback I see that Elmborg also mentions is that reference librarians have such a short time in which to ascertain an individual's needs, whereas in a classroom the teacher has the whole year (or at least the semester) to build a relationship.  That's where the "cognitive interview" comes in, which seems like it would take quite a bit of practice to perfect.

Elmborg posits that questioning is an effective teaching strategy at the reference desk.  It is also a great tool in the classroom, though it is often harder to ask strategic questions than to just explicitly teach a skill.  I do try to use questioning with my students, knowing that it allows students to construct their own knowledge.  Further, higher-level questioning teaches students to think critically and keeps the students in control of the project.  This kind of gentle guidance is what I remember about the positive interactions I had with my undergraduate librarians.  However, another difficulty in using questioning is that tendency in teachers and librarians alike to want to be the "fount of all knowledge".  I think the fear that reference librarians make their positions obsolete by fostering independence in users is unfounded.  First, there are always new users, and second, once users have mastered information literacy skills at one level they may need you again to help take their abilities to the next level.